Are Property Insurance Claims Getting Harder to Settle?

How much of a typical large property claim (property, builders risk, business interruption, and extra expense losses in excess of $5,000,000) actually gets paid by insurance, and how long does it take to settle a large claim with an insurance company? After 20 years of consulting on a variety of large property losses, I have my own ideas, but unlike smaller losses, for which statistics are regularly compiled, very little information is publicly available about large property claims. This is partly because they are relatively infrequent, but primarily because the settlement process tends to be highly confidential and limited to a small set of experts and consultants.

I was recently asked to participate in a survey that attempts to bring more information to light about the large claim process. The results of the survey confirmed what I have observed myself, that resolving large claims has become more difficult over the past 20 years, multiple claim disputes at various